| StoreTags: work, music, time off, life
Author: Zanf on May 31 2007 Viewed 3021 times. 23 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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I realised that i haven't really finished any music for about 8 months. Thats the time that Ive been on this contract Ive been working on.
I havent had time as Ive been doing 10 hour days and sometimes commuting for upto 3 hours each way. Other times I was staying in hotels for the week and couldnt focus at the end of the day enough to write.
But because of this work Ive been able to treat myself to quite a few new bits for the studio and has got me inspired to make stuff.
Im currently finishing off cabling in a new desk [mackie SR24] so that I can work in either the digital and/or analogue domains. I come from a hardware background and for the 5-6 years I was using mostly softsa, I found it incredibly frustrating making music with mostly a mouse.
My latest purchase is a Studio Electronics SE-1.
A friend used to have one, whos studio I used to use about 10-12 years ago and used to get awesome basses out of it. in the short time Ive played with this, Ive got a scope of what more it can do. Unfortunately it didnt come with a manual so Ill have to dig around dicyphering the modulation pages until my order for one arrives.
In complete polarity to unknownforces work blog, my job is superb. well......
I was on an XP deployment project, going around the country swapping out users NT & W2K machines and providing technical support in the changeover period. Ive now moved over to doing deskside support with a specified RFS [request for service].
I am only to provide support to one division of this company [there is about 3 or 4 in this particular building] and will have to provide support for ad hoc projects they develop and deploy. One of these, that Im looking forward to, is config'ing users laptops so it uses their blackberry's GPRS as a wireless modem.
The latest thing Ive been doing is trying to get a users machine to be able to access a 'catastrophy stratagey assesment' package using an SQL db. It does huge calculations for insurance risk assesment of natural disasters and potential loses.
The weirdest part is that the server and db is covered by support that my employer provides but somehow the actual software got left out.
total WTFuckery
Now consider this: the licensing costs for the s/w and support is about $8million per year. It saves the company potentially billions in liability and it got overlooked when arranging the support contracts and so is subsequently unsupported.
I have spent the day trying various solutions to remedy a problem with it [i wont go into it as its lengthy and boring and I have to face it again tomorrow] and I am constricted by the fact that I dont even have a network logon nor an email account.
Its been fun and a great challenge as Im learning loads, being kept busy, constantly having to think on my feet and getting paid a nice sum as well. [not a massive amoount but enough to keep me with all the synths I can eat!].
I did have a bad run last week though:
I was offline for 1 week more than promised by my ISP as the engineer failed to show up 3 times. [my flatmate lost money with ebay sales]
My Blackberry arrived but the SIM card was munted and took a few more days to resend and the phone wasnt functional.
I got a virus over the bank holiday weekend that started as sneezing, progressed to migraines ten snotty nose before mutating finally into a chesty cough
and I lost an auction for a G2 by a few pounds in the last minute. [i bid with 15 secs to go and the winner bid with 2 secs]
This week has been great though. My internet is stable finally [last ISP was always disconnecting]. The weather is gorgeous and I enjoy getting up in the morning!
So I should finally, after 8 months, get some music finished [2 remixes and a bunch of old tracks] and soon start writing some new stuff. Also now the job has settled into a rythym, I can start with some of collabs that Ive chatted to others about.
All in all, exciting times!
[the 2 pics are the atrium from work, my rack with SE-1 & my new TX81z and a general overview pre-SE-1] | |
Comments
06/01/07
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astroid
mmm i wish i could clone my g2
06/01/07
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Zanf
did you mean g2 or gf?
either would do me fine.
06/01/07
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crabster
Zanf: Don't know what squidgy means, but this is getting scary.
06/01/07
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bbwax
you have lots of nice machines for the bleeping and blooping. looks like a fun studio!
06/01/07
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mlbot
LOL @ Nord gf
06/01/07
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astroid
you can "lease" my "micro"
06/01/07
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ricemutt
well awesome things are working out for you... I always found returning to something after being away for a while to be very refreshing and usually creative. Crazy about those long hours though, I think i'd blow my brains out, even if the job was good!
06/01/07
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bla
im jealous of your patchbays (and cables)
do some experiments with hz and the body using your tx81z
06/01/07
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room
nice one zanf
that is a really positive blog I´m glad you´re life is going so well on the whole 
the se1 is a great a buy - i have my eye on one myself and hope to splash out within the year
look forward to the music in the future
D
06/01/07
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seanh
i have been really enjoying the evlover and i am glad that you and jdg passed on it. the se1 sounds pretty sweet, now use it.
06/02/07
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Analog
Now That's a studio.. mint.
06/02/07
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Zanf
more like "thats a studio mess" - I have very little room left now until I build a frame for my bed so its elevated or get rid of it altogether [I have snoozed a few times in my comfy chair]. The floor is a mess of cables, magazines, shoes and shit.
Thx David. Jeff said you were interested in one. I might even do the full mod works on this one. There is a mod to make the envelopes snappier, add an audio input trigger for them and then there is the SE-1x upgrade.
Astroid: everyone knows that you only have a 'micro' but was too kind to say anything. ;)
06/02/07
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Zanf
I forgot to post the link to the mods [and edit dont work]: link
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